The word ‘Eureka’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘I have found it’ and I almost shouted those very words after reaching Eureka Books, a wonderful bookshop nestled in a corner of Northern California.

We’d driven south for five hours, give or take an hour or two, from the glorious sand dunes of Southern Oregon that inspired Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel, Dune, so Eureka Books was a most welcome sight at the time.

Eureka Books stands proudly in the historic district of a rough-around-the-edges town on the shores of Humboldt Bay. It could be argued that it’s an odd place for a bookshop but there’s actually another used bookstore a little further down the block. Unless you are doing a road trip down the Pacific Coast on Highway 101 (and you should) then you will probably never pass through Eureka, which is a bit of shame because this bookshop is a real treasure. (I must add there is a most unusual building in the town called the Carson Mansion, which is also worth seeing – see below.)

Eureka Books offers a wide range of books

Open seven days a week, Eureka Books is located in a red and white Victorian storefront built in 1879. The building has had several incarnations including as a saloon. Outside, there is a Zoltar fortune telling machine, which fans of Tom Hanks will remember from the 1988 movie Big. There is a tall airy interior which opens into a second floor as you venture further in – you feel it’s a building full of stories and that those tales go way beyond books.

The store, which is a member of the ABA (American Booksellers Association) and ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America) offers new, used and rare books that appeal to a wide spectrum of buyers. Scott has been careful to ensure the store is not cluttered.

You will notice signed copies of Amy’s books alongside the latest releases upon entering the store. Rare and antiquarian books are displayed in glass cabinets down the walls. Used and out-of-print books become more plentiful as you work your way through the shelves.

It is very much a community bookshop with signings by local authors and involvement in the local arts scene. That community feel extends to the internet where Eureka offers a vibrant blog and also online versions of its rare book catalogs.

Some years ago, a man called Larry Portzline introduced me to something called Bookstore Tourism – vacations planned around bookstore visits. His goal was to support independent bookstores by promoting them as travel destinations. A most worthy goal.

Larry organized bookstore tourism trips where bibliophiles piled onto buses and visited bookstores in New York and Washington D.C. and elsewhere. He even wrote a book about the phenomenon.

As the years went on, I talked to countless booksellers who admitted that they organized their holidays around visiting bookstores in order to pick up books that they could sell in their own stores. A busman’s holiday.

I have also talked to dozens of AbeBooks customers who explained how they selected particular destinations due to the presence of particular bookshops – a trip to Portland, Oregon, means a visit to Powell’s, a weekend in New York means an afternoon in The Strand, a vacation in London means a day browsing the bookshops on Charing Cross Road, and so on. I would venture that some people won’t visit certain locales unless there is a half-decent bookstore in the vicinity.

With this in mind, AbeBooks has created the ultimate bibliophile road-trip – 66 bookstores on Route 66. That’s 66 bricks and mortar bookshops stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles.

This epic list was created by Paula Lane and Dasha Minyukova. The bookstores are very diverse from classic general used booksellers to high-end antiquarian businesses to specialists in alternative religions, architecture and art, theology and mysteries, and many other subjects. Some stores are quite large affairs – such as Gardner’s Used Books in Tulsa – while others are much smaller like The Book Den in Chicago. Some of these stores have tremendous resilience – no-one more than Sleepygirl’s Used Books in Joplin, Missouri, who had their store destroyed by a tornado only to bounce back at a new location.

Sadly, Route 66 doesn’t actually exist anymore. It was erased by soulless bureaucrats rather like the Vogons in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy destroying the Earth to make way for an intergalactic highway. However, most of the original route is still driveable. It crosses eight states and three time zones, and is around 2,400 miles in length.

Route 66 has a special connection to John Steinbeck, who wrote about the road in The Grapes of Wrath. He saw the road as an escape route with thousands of impoverished Americans moving West to find a better life. There are numerous guides to Route 66, including The Ghost Towns of Route 66 by Jim Hinckley, which appeals greatly to me. A large number of people have written about it and photographed it. The road remains something truly iconic that fascinates people today.

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/06/08/66-bookstores-on-route-66-the-ultimate-road-trip-for-bibliophiles/feed/0The 16th century book that launched a thousand travel bookshttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/05/22/the-16th-century-book-that-launched-a-thousand-travel-books/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/05/22/the-16th-century-book-that-launched-a-thousand-travel-books/#commentsFri, 22 May 2015 17:42:48 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=22486

Navigationi et Viaggi offered by Isseido Booksellers of Tokyo

Travel writing has been around for about two thousand years with both the Romans and Greeks documenting their experiences of early exploration. However, the 16th century marked the real start of travel writing with advances in printing technology and numerous explorers – from Francis Drake to Martin Frobisher – traveling to the corners of the globe on behalf of their respective superpowers.

The Isseido Booksellers in Tokyo recently gave AbeBooks a special insight into one particularly important travel book from this period. Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) was a civil servant in the Venetian Republic but his real passion was geography and he keenly followed all the latest developments from the great explorers of this age.

Fluent in several languages, Ramusio amassed various books and manuscripts, and compiled his learnings into Navigationi et Viaggi (Navigations and Travels). The book includes details on the travels of Marco Polo, Niccolò Da Conti, Magellan, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and Giosafat Barbaro. Early maps of Brazil, Canada, New England, Africa, Asia and Japan were included.

The first volume was published in 1555 with the third volume published in 1556. The second was delayed by a fire that destroyed the manuscript (a not uncommon occurrence at this time) and was finally published in 1559. The book was so popular that is was reprinted several times and translated into several languages. People were genuinely eager to learn about the extent and nature of the world around them.

The copy offered by Isseido Booksellers covers volumes printed in 1563, 1565 and 1583, and is priced at $40, 845. There are four more copies available on AbeBooks for higher prices, which indicates the importance of this particular book.

Navigationi et Viaggi

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/05/22/the-16th-century-book-that-launched-a-thousand-travel-books/feed/110 Beautiful Bookshops That Will Stop You in Your Trackshttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/01/13/10-beautiful-bookshops-that-will-stop-you-in-your-tracks/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/01/13/10-beautiful-bookshops-that-will-stop-you-in-your-tracks/#commentsTue, 13 Jan 2015 18:56:34 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=22098A bibliophile cannot walk past a bookshop without slowing their step. We will linger at the window, gazing through the glass at stacks of books we have not yet read. We hover, telling ourselves we must read the pile on the nightstand before buying another. But we can’t resist the lure. Before long, we open the door, sounding the tiny bell that rouses the shop cat. We’re in, and we’re going to be a while.

The only thing that tops a bookstore full of amazing books, is a beautiful bookstore full of amazing books – a bookstore so charming not even a TV-addict can resist it. Many stunning bookstores list their books for sale on the AbeBooks marketplace, so we rounded up a few of the most alluring storefronts from Paris to Boston and everywhere in between. Even those immune to the magnetic pull of the smell of old books will stop dead in their tracks at the sight of these pretty AbeBooks bookstores, so before you step inside to bury your nose in a book, take a moment to enjoy the view from outside.

Located in Boston, MA, Brattle Book Shop first opened its doors in 1825. George Gloss took ownership in 1949 and his son Ken (pictured above) runs it today. The three-story building in downtown Boston is home to over 250,000 books, including two floors of used books and one floor of rare & antiquarian books. The books have even poured into the neighboring outside lot, nestled under the watchful eyes of Toni Morrison, Kafka, and Yeats.

For most of the 20th century this charming storefront in Eureka, CA was a rough-and-tumble speakeasy called the High Lead Saloon, where in 1933 the two owners had a shootout in the back hallway. Only owner Tom Slaughter survived, and his family owned the building into the 1970s. It’s also said that author Raymond Carver indulged at the High Lead, and a picture of the building can be seen in his book Carver Country. Today, the building is occupied by a slightly softer crowd. Eureka Books moved in in 1992, and all signs of scandal seem to be gone. One of the last classic antiquarian booksellers on the west coast, Eureka Books offers first editions, ephemera, and new and used books.

A list of beautiful bookstores isn’t complete without a proper London shop. Peter Harrington has been dealing in the rare books business since 1969 and boasts an impressive selection of exquisite modern first editions, manuscripts, and more.

See all 10 Beautiful Bookshops here, and leave a comment about a beautiful bookshop in your city!

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2015/01/13/10-beautiful-bookshops-that-will-stop-you-in-your-tracks/feed/0The best travel books and world’s most literary city according to Patricia Schultzhttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2014/10/21/the-best-travel-books-and-worlds-most-literary-town-according-to-patricia-schultz/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2014/10/21/the-best-travel-books-and-worlds-most-literary-town-according-to-patricia-schultz/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 16:49:42 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=21757

We recently had the pleasure of meeting author Patricia Schultz, the woman behind the best-selling 1000 Places to See Before You Die books. We were anxious to pick her brain about the world’s most literary towns and the bookshops she’s seen along the way, and she was generous enough to indulge us.

AbeBooks: Tell us about the most interesting bookshops you’ve discovered in your travels.

Patricia Schultz: I have traveled all over the US speaking at travel shows, libraries and bookstores. I’ve found that the smaller independent bookstores so full of character – some of them owned by the same book-loving family for generations – are generally the most interesting, having had to grow, evolve and keep up with the ways and trends of the times. Those that have survived appear to be much more of a welcoming social center than the larger and more impersonal chains. It is so important to support our independent stores.

Abe: What books are in your suitcase?

P.S.: I always bring a guidebook or three (with others left behind at home) – but for my trip to Israel in a few weeks, I will also be bringing A Tale of Love and Darkness, the autobiography written by the acclaimed novelist Amos Oz. Three different friends have told me it promises a sensitively written and profound insight to Israel, a very special destination where I last visited 15 years ago.

Abe: In your opinion, what is the most literary city in the world? Why?

P.S.: Ireland’s deep love of words go far beyond James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Yeats and Beckett – back to the Druids and Celts. Dublin is a great city all around, with a longtime love and respect for its famous story tellers and awarded literary heritage. The capital city names bridges and streets after writers, and erects statues and memorials to commemorate them. In 2010, the UN declared Dublin an official City of Literature (a credential it shares with just six others in the world: Edinburgh, Iowa City, Reykjavik, Melbourne, Norwich and Krakow)…and did I mention its dozens of literary pubs?

Abe: Who is your favorite (fellow) travel writer?

P.S.: I couldn’t possibly list one – nor all of them. Some I happened upon randomly, others because they were linked to a destination I was planning to visit. I read Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom before my first visit to Egypt. Patrick Leigh Fermor‘s books led me to Greece’s Mani Peninsula, while Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene stoked my curiosity about Cuba. I don’t read travel literature half as much as I would like to, as I am always up-to-here with guide books, mountains of periodicals and research that need my attention for more practical purposes – but they too are insightful and inspiring in their own way.

Abe: What inspired you to travel the world, and what inspired you to write about it?

P.S.: That curiosity with which we are all born did not diminish in me over the years. My parents – although we traveled infrequently as a family due to a very modest lifestyle – always helped to keep that curiosity alive and nourished. I always traveled as much as I could, beginning with three experience-packed years after college when I lived in Florence. I never really fancied myself a writer – I had never studied writing or journalism and I read a lot (mostly to keep alive the second and third languages I studied in school) but not voraciously. My first writing assignment came to me by chance – and that’s when the light bulb went off. What if I could make a living off of my wanderlust? Beginner’s luck was good to me and kept reality at bay. It isn’t an easy (nor lucrative – at all!) career choice, but I was enjoying it too much to reconsider during those first (very) lean years.

Writer, broadcaster, bibliophile, and globetrotting literary journalist Nigel Beale recently paid a visit to Wales in search of all things literary, including the elusive works of Greynog Press. Read about this bookish exploration and many more on his aptly named and entertaining blog, Literary Tourist. It certainly has us packing our bags.

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/11/21/a-literary-tourists-search-for-the-books-of-gregynog-press/feed/0The best travel book I’ve read recentlyhttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/06/the-best-travel-book-ive-read-recently/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/06/the-best-travel-book-ive-read-recently/#commentsFri, 06 Sep 2013 16:40:55 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=19577Travel writing is one of the genres that I dip in and out of. On Saturday, I visited Black Sheep Books on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia and picked up a copy of Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman from the store’s rather good travel section.

Salzman’s book is recommended by Paul Theroux in his compendium of travel writing called The Tao of Travel. Iron and Silk is about China in the early 1980s. Salzman spends two years in China, teaching English at a medical school in Changsha – a city in the Hunan Province where westerners are rarely seen. For instance, he becomes friends with fishermen who have never seen a white man before. He actually writes very little about the teaching and more about his learnings through the people he meets, especially all the martial arts teachers that he encounters during his two-year stint in communist China. The book is very, very readable and I had finished it by Monday, which is rare for me as I’m a slow reader.

Salzman never judges even though he is placed in difficult situations time again by crazy red tape or a city that seemingly runs on a shoe-string.

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/06/the-best-travel-book-ive-read-recently/feed/0Bookstores of New Yorkhttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/26/bookstores-of-new-york/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/26/bookstores-of-new-york/#commentsFri, 26 Apr 2013 15:55:24 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=19065Last week I was in New York. The purpose of the visit was to attend two antiquarian book fairs, but I always try to make time to visit booksellers in their stores. Nothing can replace the touch and feel of a beautiful book and talking to someone that is passionate about what they do.

Walking into an antiquarian bookshop is a bit like opening a treasure chest; you never know what you are going to find and there are always hidden gems. I love knowing that I can walk into these stores and find something that I know has had a long and interesting life and belonged to people that cared enough to preserve and share them.

One of the shops I visited was Argosy Books in midtown Manhattan. Argosy Books was founded in 1925 and is now in its third generation of family ownership. There are books on the shelves, books in stacks and piled on tables. All combined with great lighting and small pops of colour from flowers placed throughout the store to make you feel instantly comfortable and welcome.

Argosy specializes in Americana, modern first editions, autographs, art, maps & prints and books about the history of science and medicine. If those aren’t up your alley, you will also find many other books in a wide variety of topics and with a wide variety of prices. If you have the time and you’re in New York, Argosy is definitely a store you should visit.

Another shop I visited was the Complete Traveller Antiquarian Bookstore on Madison Avenue. This store evolved from The Complete Traveller Bookstore which was the first travel bookstore in the US. As the name states, this shop specializes in collectible travel literature and has one of the best collections of authentic Baedeker travel guides. Baedekers are considered to be the first modern travel guides and can be easily identified by their distinct red cover. The books were treasured for their detailed historic accounts and the many fold out maps they contain.

This is a unique and specialized shop and definitely worth a visit if you love travel, history and culture.

No visit to New York is complete for me until I visit The Strand. Strand never disappoints and I always walk away with at least one, well really several books. This time I came home with something for my children, but I love it too: This is New York by Miroslav Sasek. We love these books in my house and have many others in the This Is…. series.

Most people know that Strand is a great place to go for affordable books, but it also has a fantastic Rare Book Room. Hop in the elevator and go up to the 3rd floor, and you’ll walk into a room filled with lovely old books, many of which can be found on AbeBooks.

Strand also has many affordable and collectible signed first editions. The day of my visit, they were getting ready for a book signing and talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz, discussing his newest book This is How You Lose Her.

Bookstores in New York offer a slice of history and small pieces of beauty that will draw you in and make you love books even more.

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/26/bookstores-of-new-york/feed/0Winnie-the-Pooh and Other Animals at the New York Public Libraryhttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/24/winnie-the-pooh-and-other-animals-at-the-new-york-public-library/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/24/winnie-the-pooh-and-other-animals-at-the-new-york-public-library/#commentsWed, 24 Apr 2013 15:50:02 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=19041

Last week I was in New York for the ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair and also the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show. As always, New York offered amazing bookstores and a buzzing city.

I had some spare time, and in keeping with the book theme, decided to visit the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. For me, this building is the very best of what a library can be; beautiful architecture, unique books and a great children’s book collection.

Walking down Fifth Avenue, my first glimpse of the library was the iconic lions (top left), Patience and Fortitude. The library lions are instantly recognizable and mark the library as a special place. On this visit, there were two Lego replicas of the beloved lions (top right) inside the building – definitely worth a look for Lego lovers!

The NYPL is the second largest library in the US and the third largest in the world, with at least 53 million items. The building was designed by John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings between 1897 and 1911 and is stunning example of Beaux-Arts design. At the time of construction, the library was the largest marble structure ever built in the US.

In a corner of the children’s library I discovered an exhibit of the real Winnie the Pooh animals: Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Tigger and Pooh. The animals belonged to Christopher Milne, son of the author, A.A. Milne and the books were donated to the New York Public Library in 1987 by the publisher of the Pooh books (aside: if you don’t know the origins of Winnie the Pooh, they are fascinating).

When you look at these animals you can see they were well loved, with worn patches and bits of fur missing, this makes them that much more endearing . Knowing that the stories were based on treasured and well-loved toys makes them even better to read, I can’t wait to rediscover these tales with my daughters.

]]>http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/24/winnie-the-pooh-and-other-animals-at-the-new-york-public-library/feed/0Miroslav Sasek: This is Arthttp://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/06/miroslav-sasek-this-is-art/
http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2012/09/06/miroslav-sasek-this-is-art/#commentsThu, 06 Sep 2012 17:48:08 +0000http://www.abebooks.com/blog/?p=17315Miroslav Sasek , who often published as M. Sasek, was a 20th-century Czech author and illustrator, best known for his This Is… series of children’s books. The series showed the sights, sounds and history of various regions of the world through the use of vibrant, colorful drawing and engaging, relatable writing.

Published from 1959-1974, several of the original books are highly collectible, and demand was so high that many titles have enjoyed recent reprinting. Perfect for collecting, displaying, and enjoying – at surprisingly affordable prices.